DHKP Bulletin marking its 33rd anniversary

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday April 01, 2003 13:34 by Meryem - DHKP dhkc at post dot com

Revolutionaries from Turkey on self-sacrifice and the need to oppose imperialism

Bulletin 25 of the DHKP (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party) states that throughout its 33 years, the DHKP and its predecessor organisations have always shown self-sacrifice and opposed imperialism. It adds that it also stood up to the ideological pressures of the 1990s, and sees the current attack on Iraq as showing what imperialism is, stripped of its propaganda.

Number: 25 Date: March 30, 2003

33 YEARS OF THE SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE

The Road Of Liberation Of The Peoples Of The World Is The Road Our Party Has Marched Along For 33 Years With Courage And Resolve

March 30 marks two important points in our history

The first was on March 30, 1972, when leading cadres and fighters of the THKP-C announced their manifesto of liberation from imperialism and the oligarchy. In this manifesto it was written that the leaders of the THKP-C preferred to die rather than to surrender. In writing this manifesto, they stared the physical destruction of the THKP-C in the face, but they were certain that the manifesto would go on and turn the defeat into a victory.
The second important March 30 in our history was an important turning point foreseen by those who were immortalised at Kizildere. The Party and Front, physically defeated in Kizildere in 1972 and scattered in terms of its organisational structure, was rebuilt as an organisation on March 30, 1994.
Despite appearing to have been interrupted, from the point of view of ideology and politics, and from the point of view of the struggle against imperialism and fascism these 33 years have witnessed no interruptions.
The 33 years of our history are a history of definite persistence in and laying claim to revolution and socialism, in the face of all difficulties in national and international conditions.
Our feet were shackled, they tried to make us bog down in a swamp and they wanted to choke our voices, they conducted the most major operations to destroy the Party and Front; all of these sometimes slowed down our march, sometimes the way was opened to more rapid developments; but under no conditions could there be deviations from the path. Even in conditions where we experienced the greatest shocks, we were not shaken ideologically and politically and we kept our line and our aims pure.
April 17, 1992 is another date in our history which is a statement of our line’s assertiveness and resolve. The assertion, resolve, courage and self-sacrifice of our leading cadres was concretised. On April 17, 1992, 11 of our leaders and members were martyred in a massacre, and while surrounded our martyrs challenged the front of exploitation and tyranny, while surrounded they continued to wave our banner with the hammer and sickle.
March 30-April 17 are two dates which symbolise our history. Our announcement of the Days Of Remembering The Revolutionary Martyrs and Celebrating The Founding Of The Party are the result of this history.
In the nine years since our Party was founded, we wish to state that this history is our honour and our pride. If today, we are so confident in ourselves in the midst of the developing upheaval being experienced in the world, our confidence is derived from this history.

Our Party’s line represents DANGER for the imperialists and the oligarchy in the world and in our country, while it means LIBERATION for the peoples!

The month of March in 2003 witnessed another turning point on a world scale.
The aggression by the American Empire against Iraq, started to bring its imperial plans to fruition, puts an end to the propaganda directed at the peoples of the world since the start of the 1990s in the form of demagogic slogans about a “unipolar world” and “globalisation”.
Since September 11, 2001, the peoples have been confronted by imperialist terror and intimidation. With the attack on Iraq, this terror has reached its highest level today.
The independence struggles against imperialism which they are trying to make us forget, and the revolutions which they are trying to make us accept as “a thing of the past” are today even more on the agenda of the peoples than they were before.
The American Empire put our organisation on its list of “target organisations” in the framework of the war on the world’s peoples it has been conducting since September 11.
Today we live in a world where all organisations and associations which are not seen as dangerous or declared by American imperialism to be an enemy may feel doubts about themselves because of that.
When we entered the political arena in 1971 we struck one of our biggest blows, hitting Zionist Israel, America’s murderer in the Middle East. America’s hostility towards our movement dates from this period. However, neither this nor the dozens of attacks carried out on American targets during the course of our political history are the only reasons for seeing us as “dangerous”.
America declaring the Party and Front to be a “target” is based on class, and our organisation’s aim of an anti-imperialist, anti-oligarchic revolution is the political explanation why we constitute a threat for America.
Neither our comrades’ corpses being presented to US President Bush, nor the collapse of the USSR, nor the period when counter-revolutionary winds were blowing caused us to think for even a moment of reaching agreement with imperialism. We did not change our views on imperialism when imperialist bombardment took our comrades’ lives, nor did imperialism’s propaganda bombardments make us take shelter in theories that “imperialism has changed”.
In a certain sense, the place of the Party and Front in the world has been determined by this period.
In a period when abandoning weapons, taking down banners with the hammer and sickle, discovering “new approaches”, condemning socialism and acting as a reserve for the new world order were in demand, we were made into a “target” because we waved the flag of socialism.
Not being affected in a leftward or rightward direction, not deviating in the face of strong winds, not being afraid to pay a price, this willpower frightens the ruling classes.
For this, our Party was made into one of the targets of imperialism and the oligarchy.
The line of sacrifice which we took from the world’s peoples and the martyrs and turned into a legend is opening the road of people’s resistance for the whole world!
Kizildere is the leaven of our spirit of sacrifice. This leaven is the leaven of the war for independence, democracy and socialism, opposing the tyranny of imperialism and fascism.
Very varied sections, from the bourgeoisie to various parts of the left, have blackened this line, calling it suicidal and adventurism. In days that are easy, it is relatively possible to find people to defend the beliefs of such sections, to support their beliefs. But history has continually thrown their beliefs in the wastepaper basket because of the scale of tyranny practised by imperialism, the collaborationist oligarchy and fascism.
This is how it is, it is enough to look at events of a few years, from Palestine to Turkey to Iraq, to see this.
Everyone is a witness: the most fearful tyranny is confronted by the spirit of sacrifice.
Look at Palestine: on soil that is subject to the worst tyranny and the most absolute encirclement in the world, it is none other than this spirit that maintains the Palestinian people and keeps them holding on tight to hope.
Look at our country: the revolutionary movement started to come under attack from the oligarchy with the support of imperialism two and a half years ago, which sought to destroy it and leave our people without organisation, but it was able to confront the attack with this same spirit.
The people of Iraq are resisting the biggest military forces in a century of imperialism with the spirit of sacrifice, like a lot of people in history who have experienced occupation. In the course of the past century it has been witnessed many times that independence has not been won against imperialism, democracy has not been won against fascism without the peoples suffering every kind of trouble and fear and paying a price on a mass scale.
Without developing a spirit of sacrifice, without making it into a tradition, no people has a chance of resisting such an encirclement under today’s conditions. The bourgeoisie’s idea that “there is nothing worth dying for” is only a way of continuing to serve their own ruling class.
Under these conditions, everybody has to come face to face with scrutinising the thoughts and views they held only yesterday. In such scrutiny the line of our Party will be a reference point for everyone.
How is it that the thoughts of the Party-Front create legendary acts of resistance? What kind of beliefs can cause people to go to their deaths without hesitation?
By asking this question, it is possible to arrive at the secret of resistance of our country and the peoples of the world.

The Party-Front is laying claim to power
The Party-Front is Independence, Democracy and Socialism
The Party-Front is Internationalism

The 33 years of the Party-Front’s history of resistance and war is a history that has been written of resistance to the system, resistance without falling into the “protest” and “reformist” traps many political movements fall into. We have organised every area of life. We have applied all forms of struggle. We have created a rich variety of organisational forms. But in no area, no form of struggle, no form of organisation, whatever the force of gravity derived from economic conditions, could pull us away from the direction we were going in or cause us to deviate.
Under all conditions, whatever the process and whatever the forms of struggle of the period or the broadening of day-to-day aims, we have always succeeded in drawing a clear line between ourselves and any left-right deviations.
Guaranteeing this is our claim to power and our objective.
Without aiming for power, without thinking of this assertiveness, no movement has a chance of victory.
However, those who lay claim to power will be able to resist under any conditions.
In 33 years the visible outline of our history of resistance and war is what everyone, friend or enemy, will be able to see:
We represent an unerring, uncompromising line of opposition to imperialism!
A large section of the world’s left became bogged down in errors and events, with characteristic examples being that they presented globalisation as being “unavoidable”, the counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe were described as “popular revolutions”, and organised forces reacted to the attack on Iraq by saying “No to Uncle Sam, No to Saddam”. The Party-Front responded to these developments by putting forward a correct revolutionary line, persistently and without fail.
Our name is one of not giving in to fascism! It is very clear that we were priority targets at every period for the repression by the oligarchy in our country and its policy of massacres. In Turkey’s left, our movement suffered the greatest losses: but against that, Turkey’s history bears witness that in every period we were to the fore in the positions of resistance. We paid whatever price was necessary. We rejected all fears, worries and calculations based on the status quo, and we condemned all those who behaved in accordance with such reckonings.
We are defenders of socialism against capitalism! The world’s left became inhibited, distanced itself from the aim of revolution and showed lack of confidence in itself and its ideology, giving the most shameful examples of irresolution when it came to defending socialism. They attacked Stalin with words taken from the bourgeoisie’s mouth, they attacked socialism using the bourgeoisie’s concepts about “actually existing socialism”, bourgeois democracy was defended using concepts like “libertarian democratic socialism”, and an important section of the left became bogged down in this swamp. We defended socialism as the only alternative for the world’s peoples and humanity, with the attitude that “the problems of socialism will be solved within socialism”. Those who did not show resolve in defending socialism during that period are now using slogans like “another world is possible”, drifting around in the emptiness like directionless ships. And the banner of socialism with the symbol of the hammer and sickle that we waved under the worst conditions is today on the world’s agenda again as a valid and necessary alternative.
We are continuing the traditions of internationalism! We saw our resistance and our fight as a part of the same war as that waged by all peoples who are resisting and fighting. In the face of imperialism’s attacks in the four corners of the world, we showed solidarity in our military and political behaviour in proportion to our strength. While some have used internationalism as an excuse to flee from the struggle against fascism in their own country, we have stressed that the basis of internationalism is to drive imperialism from one’s own country and to bring down collaborationist governments: this is the line we have applied.
Anti-imperialist, anti-oligarchic revolutions are the only way out for a world threatened by an Empire

In all the neo-colonialist countries, the development of people’s wars of liberation against imperialism and its local collaborators is emerging as the sole road to emancipation for the peoples.
The people’s liberation war is a universal line of liberation for all neo-colonial countries.
It is impossible to march along this line without patriotism and an ardent love of the people. The virtues are those that bourgeois ideology would like to eliminate today, at any price. All revolutionary, democratic and progressive organisations as well as peoples must revive these feelings and arm their ranks with these moral values.
To march along this line is to appropriate the spirit of sacrifice. Self-sacrifice, solidarity and collectivism are values which the bourgeoisie wanted to destroy. We must revive these qualities. We must eliminate all individualist opinions which do harm to these virtues.
The cadres and sympathisers of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party, whose 33 years of history have contained these noble qualities, will continue the anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchic struggle of the peoples of Turkey. Our cadres and sympathisers must inculcate themselves with the awareness that the struggle against imperialism and the oligarchy lies in reactivating those moral values which imperialism and the oligarchy want to destroy.
To defend these values and arm ourselves with these values is today as important as defending a correct strategy. The peoples will resist the American empire and its collaborators with this spirit of sacrifice. This spirit of sacrifice will open the way to power.

Let us unite on the road to liberation!
Confronted by imperialism and the oligarhcy, there is no other alternative to the people’s liberation struggle and socialism.
That is why we embarked on this road. That is why we have been put in the F-Type prisons. That is why we were listed as a “target” organisation. That is why we are continuing our resistance and our combat.
On the world scale, the American Empire, on the scale of our country the collaborationist government are forcing us to live with hunger and under occupation. Peoples who are hungry, poor and colonised cannot accept that.
Our martyrs are lighting up the path which will lead us to creating an independent country and will make us into a free people.
The road of liberation that they are illuminating is obvious and open.
We celebrate our martyrs with respect and loyalty, along with our martyrs who have left us their values and traditions as an inheritance;
We call on our people of all nationalities and beliefs to take the road to liberation under the flag of our Party which has passed with flying colours all the ordeals of fire to which we have been subjected over 33 years.

Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Partisi
(Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party)